Kill it, Claudia
by Madou-Dilou
Summary: Claudia does not dare to move. Guilt strottles her, the official portrait stares at her, and her father takes notes. There is only one word to say, one gesture to do, but she can't. Maybe because at the age of nine, she is still human in every last drop of her blood. Translation from French "Tue-le, Claudia, by the AMAZING Elizabeth M. Holmes (she is on FB, Discord and ff. net) !
1. Chapter 1

Hey!

Elizabeth M. Holmes accepted to help me with the translation of this story in English, and I am so, SO grateful to her! Eli, you deserve the world for this!

Here I am with a little character study about our favourite little goth (happy birthday, on the 16th June, by the way) and her handsome morally-grey father (yes I am team Viren). They are quite challenging to determine as characters, so I hope I didn't mess up ... Translated from French with the help of Elizabeth M. Holmes!

This is only the first chapter, so keep yourselves informed!

Fellow humans, human fellows, we hope you'll enjoy it!

Madou

* * *

Claudia does not dare to move.

All the ingredients of the spell are there, right there. In fact, she only needs the Primal Stone, resting smooth, cold and heavy in her hand. She knows the formula, and the rune to draw by heart. She cast it on spiders, cockroaches, rats and mice for years.

It suffices that she utters the draconic word and traces the rune in the void to put an end to this hell.

_Your Majesties, I would have accompanied you with pleasure to Banther Lodge, but Claudia an intense flu. She might relapse if she is exposed to the frost of the mountains so soon. It would be more reasonable for me to stay with her at the castle for this year, at least until she recovered fully, say a short week. Soren will leave with you, and we will join you later, just in time for your birthdays._

Her father did not lie. She had been sick for two weeks. The stuffy nose, the double ear infection, the coughing, the migraine, the fever. Even today, she's not sure she fully recovered.

But she knows very well that it is not because of illness or contagion that her father has prevented her from leaving his office for six hours now.

And that it is not a disease that hurts her so badly.

The kitten turns around her, rubs her hand, complains and scratches at the door, comes back to her to ask for a caress. And then it whines, shaking its paw as it rolls the Primal Storm Stone over the dark red pavement. It sticks its white hairs on her black embroidered dress and loves purring all against her as her hand scratches its ears, its throat. White hair, blue eyes. At first glance, it is barely two months old and seems deaf. Viren chose it on purpose, of course - moreover, they are calm and affectionate animals that would not risk sharpening their claws on the Durennian rug or the wrought mahogany door. And even if she tries to hide it, it is evident that she has already become too attached to the animal - perhaps she has already given it a name …

Yet, this is not the first time she has to deal with a situation like this. As an apprentice dark mage, she has already sublimated dozens of Xadian creatures for her spells, and beasts devoid of any Arcanum.

But with this kitten, she can not do it.

She just can not do it.

At first, Claudia had, as usual, tried to believe it a joke. Come on, Dad, you are kidding. It's a gift, is it? But it's Soren's birthday, not mine, it's him that you should have offered this tiny little cutie, and then you know how he likes cats. Okay, he prefers dogs. But a cat is the perfect gift for an eleven-year-old child. Even deaf. And look at this sweet little lad... How can we even want to pull at his tail?

"You already did a lot worse with rats."

She shrugs:

"Yes, but rats are disgusting. It doesn't really matter."

"So, a rat has less right to live than a kitten?"

Father had the tone he used when the situation was serious. In the minister's study located on the top floor of his tower, the rumour of the central court reaches them from the traceried windows. But in those winter days, it is all very silent. In the absence of the royal family and the nobles returned to their domains, the castle is almost deserted. Grooms, cooks, guards, servants, stewards: all of them followed their masters, except for the old librarian haunting the shelves, some guards, a steward, a cook and a servant. The fire crackles in the stone fireplace, without any wood fueling it. In the absence of Harrow and Sarai, Viren took the opportunity to keep the castle warm by dark magic - it is better to spare the single servant remaining. That way he won't have to carry massive logs all over the courtyard and five floors with steep stairs for two people only. Their Majesties left just enough staff for the minister and his sick daughter ... to say that the castle is a tomb.

But when Viren spoke like that, slower and a little deeper, it was as if he were the spectre of the tomb beginning to numb the mind, bewitching the spirit like a soul-feng snake.

Besides, he puts his hand on her shoulder. It weighs, it squeezes a little. He does it all the time to give orders or important advice, or when the situation is serious. Even the king's clothes bear the mark - the fabric is a little faded here. That's logical since Father is the appointed advisor to the king.

Claudia opened her mouth and closed it with a frown.

"Do you think these rats were responsible for being rats, that they deserved death just to be born rats?"

"Er ... "

She wanted to roll her eyes. It sounded like King Harrow talking about Elves. But she did not find anything to answer, as expected.

Of course, Viren knows that it will result in healthy guilt...

"But Claudia must remember," says Harrow's voice somewhere in Viren's memories, "that the lives she will take are never worthless."

"Well, your Grace," replied Viren, somewhat wearily. "You know how it works. Thanks to dark magic, to the casual sacrifice of one living being, we save hundreds of people every day."

"Dark magic certainly maintains a balance, but it's a scale covered with blood, it's unfair, and you know it perfectly!"

"A fortiori when it weighs in the mysteries of power, just like yourself, "Your High Majesty"! "

Harrow grimaces. Here, the use of the title is not honorary, and it is confident of his shot that Viren continues his sentence:

"Those who carry millions of lives on the shoulders, millions of destinies, individuals, people, breaths …"

"It is absolutely not the same th -"

"... all those lives that may vanish at the slightest wrong move. "

In other circumstances, Viren would never have allowed himself to cut off the word of his king.

But there, they were alone in the palace's gardens, without a courtier in front of whom to abide by any protocol, except the white rose bushes, the gravel creaking under their court boots, the butterflies and the twilight showering them in gold and blood light. The perfume of the roses dilated nostrils, and, not the gravity of the situation; everything breathed calmness. Harrow was silent, contenting himself with putting his thumbs in his eyes with a sigh of dismay, tired in advance. They had already had this discussion dozens of times. Viren pushed his advantage in a calm, understanding voice:

"As a king, you tried to avoid bloodshed as much as possible, you wanted to protect your people, as every king should do, and I assisted you in this task as best I could, using my spells. But you too have led men and women to death."

"I ended the war against Evenere. I am the one who ended this conflict that lasted for six years!"

"Admittedly, your Grace ... but to end this war, even with my spells, you had to sacrifice hundreds of soldiers. Tell me how battlefield mass graves are better than a few punctual sacrifices of dark magic. And please, do not talk to me about cheating, honour, shortcut or easy victory."

"And you, dare to say to me that all those whom you have killed for your evil spells represent nothing to you!"

This comeback stopped Viren in his tracks.

When one sublimates a soul for a spell allowing to save ten, even if one is persuaded to have opted for the best solution, to have done what was right, to have done the right thing... The weight on the conscience always remains, this shadow over the acts, this discomfort with every second passed before a mirror, that purulent wound that oozes with guilt... The dark mages' self-hatred, which they choose to hide and stifle in the depths of their pragmatic consciousness so as not to sink into madness.

Because his adviser was still silent, Harrow resumes, with the same worried look that he displays when he speaks of his bastard Callum:

"Viren ... I do not mean to interfere with anything that does not concern me. The education of your children is your business, more than ever now that Cornelia... don't look at me like that every time I mention her name. But you understand that I worry about Claudia losing all respect for human life."

"With all due respect, Harrow, I very much doubt it. She only uses insects and rats to …"

"Oh, do not play the altar boy with me, Viren. You sleep at mass, and you roll your eyes as soon as High Prelate Opelie opens her mouth to talk about charity... although I admit that her formalism is sometimes somewhat stifling."

They exchanged a brief complicit smile, but the king resumed, attacked, worried, ruthless, and Viren's awkward parries struggled to hold the defence as they continued to survey the rose garden.

"All the castle knows when your daughter comes out of dissecting a poor animal since she sings loudly in all the corridors without even washing her hands or having changed her clothes. Admit that an eight-year-old child who hums in this state, the legs and the dress covered with blood, does not forebode anything particularly happy for the future …"

"Nine years old, your Grace. And it only happened twice …"

Harrow glances at him.

"All right," admits Viren with a grin. "A dozen of times."

They resume their walking, and Harrow returns to his speech, their boots are creaking:

"Even her brother Soren maintains a distance, even a little one. To scare the one who jumped from the cliffs of Castel Nereus at the age of seven, believe me, you really have to want it. But what is absolutely horrifying is that Claudia does not even do it on purpose! »

Viren refrains from roll his eyes. It was Claudia who had informed him at the time. Viren had reprimanded the fool as he deserved after such a stupidity - Soren probably still remembers it today. But the problem was, it was that Queen Sarai had insisted that Claudia also receive punishment for denouncing her brother. "Who can trust this poor boy if he can't even trust his sister?" she had protested. "And congratulations on the values of honour and honesty you instil in your little darling! She will, no doubt, be a most reliable Prime Minister, known for her proverbial righteousness." Sarai herself had solid links with her younger sister, Colonel Amaya, but great gods, why the devil would she be passionate about the fate of the poor boy and the little darling? Viren, seeing that giving her his share of jelly tart for three weeks would not be enough to shake Sarai's convictions, had nodded faintly to the extravagant request: Claudia had thus copied a whole chapter of the _Treaty of Popularization on the foundations Elven magic._

Her favourite book of the moment, chosen of course with full knowledge of the facts.

"The cliffs were nearly forty meters high, your Grace," he replies, grimly. "Soren could have killed himself."

"Oh, do not tell me that your wrath did not melt when he said to justify himself that he wanted to be as brave as you."

"It was not courage; it was downright stupidity".

The persistent belief of confusing the two has always exasperated him:

"Soren has no instinct for self-preservation. Put him in a pit with a hungry bear and a wooden sword, and he will jump on the beast without any hesitation. Not only it is hardly flattering for me but …"

"You know what they say," interjected the king again with a jeering smile. Whoever refuses a compliment is actually looking for a second one."

"I beg your p ...?"

Disconcerted by this unfair sting, Viren wonders if the grin that twists his lips will discredit him in his arguments and tip the scales against him:

"Finally ... not only that," he finally resumes more assuredly, "But besides I find nothing that could have one melted, as you say, in this foolish madness".

"If you say so ... "

Their steps have led them into the big greenhouse, where the king sat on one of the benches. Viren leaned on his sceptre, and tried to enjoy the silence but not for long:

"Allow me to insist, Viren," (of course, as a king, he does not wait for permission and ignores the sighing annoyance of his neighbour) " But speaking of madness, our dear little Claudia had tried during a meal to tie the table mats into slipknots to explain us that exact cause of death differed according to the type of knot used, and that, with the eyes filled with stars and a smile from ear to ear? Callum was about to throw up!"

"No offence intended, Your Grace, but Prince Callum is only four years old" retorts Viren, who wedged his sceptre against a sleeping dragon carved in stone and placed his hands behind his back. It is very typical at this age to have such sensi …"

"On the contrary," retorts Harrow, scandalised, "It's even worse! At this age, we hardly know what death is! It is then an abstract concept and totally indefinite, except that it is the punishment that awaits the evil elves at the end of the tales and legends. And did not Claudia added that it would be exciting to attend a real hanging? You hear, Viren," hammers s the king in the same tone where the horror oozes from each syllable, "Exciting!"

"She said that to please me …" finally says Viren.

It looks like false modesty, but he knows the king won't take it. 

"But you were not even there!" Harrow protests. "You had left the table to take care of Soren too sick to sleep! I let you imagine Sarai's face in front of the spectacle offered by your daughter …"

Viren can not help laughing, but the blows do not stop:

"And did not she insist on seeing her first execution? What was she, seven years old, if I remember correctly? What were the words she had used already? Ah, yes !"

Harrow beats eyelashes and monkeys a falsetto voice:

_"Please, daddy, can I hit his corpse with my whip to see if it still bruises?"_

"It was not a human! Viren retorts, unable to control a hint of anger in his voice.

The argument was all the more hurtful because at the time he had himself been destabilised:

"It was an elf who had just tried to kill you!"

"Do not pretend; you understand very well what I'm trying to tell you."

The magician has set his glance on one of the flowers of the garden in silence. 

A_ Campania Semiplena_, or _rosa alba_ for close friends.

He wondered - stupidly enough if the evening light could make it redden a little more. If the white flower could turn red by staying too long at dusk, where day and night clash, where the border between life and death turned into blood haze ...

His fingers are tapping nervously on his elfish sceptre, producing a metallic sound.

A butterfly lands on his forefinger but flies away immediately.

Is he so repulsive?

Harrow takes advantage of his silence to continue:

"Viren ... You have to make her aware of what she is becoming. Otherwise, she risks losing herself in a furious madness, an icy indifference, sowing death as one picks flowers. Who cares about the flowers that are torn from the ground to make a bouquet?"

"That's a pretty metaphor," Viren grunts, despite not being a cynic. Inspired by this sublime floral decor, I guess?"

"You must act. As a dark mage, you tend to think that it does not matter ... um ... to use a soul if it can be used for a spell."

"The exact term is "sublimate", Your Grace," says Viren without much hope of being heard because King Harrow never listens to anyone.

"Of course, of course," continues Harrow, of course without noticing the interruption because he never listens to anything. "Claudia is a nice girl. I know it. She can even be compassionate at times - see how she reacted when Callum bruised the other day, a real mother hen, haha! Sarai did one of those heads …"

_"She can even, sometimes, be compassionate."_ Does his Grace hear himself talk?

"You say," Harrow continues, "using right spells in the right circumstances can save lives, and you've proved it for many years. But how do you know if Claudia will be able to determine the right circumstances? And correct me if I'm wrong, but dark magic is killing to use the soul of the victim, hm? "

Viren agrees, without using the language abuse on "use". The silence that follows is fraught with a too grim future. The sunset that illuminates the rose garden is now a twilight before dark; a whole nation dragged into the abyss by the weight of a head bloated with progress, arbitrary justice, bloody grandeur; a night of countless innocent victims, negligible lives and unnecessary sacrifices.

"Admittedly," he finally replied, "but I make sure personally that she learns everything a prime minister needs to know: horse riding, economics, geopolitics, military strategy, diplomacy ..."

On his bench, Harrow looks exasperated at the flowers that have not done him any offence. Twilight gilds his dark skin, and his scarlet robes embroidered with crimson dragons make him vaguely resembles a god of anger.

"Of course," acknowledges Viren, "She does not stand out by her ease in learning languages …"

"And that's the least we can say, given her neolandic accent …"

"... but believe me, Your Grace, she will be perfectly able to discern where her duty lies."

"Oh, excuse me for having doubts," laughs Harrow, "In spite of her big smiles marvelling at the scaffolds and her obsession with the bone powder and the brain-juice of sentenced-to-death...

This time, Viren does not even shy away from rolling his eyes, opens his mouth to retaliate, these are just re-used ingredients for spells, she's not going to kill people on purpose to sublimate their corpses, nor will it sacrifice thousands of young soldiers for a simple strategic diversion, finally, the term is not "brain-juice" but "cerebrospinal fluid"; but before he could speak, His Majesty raised his hand:

"You know very well that if she continues on that path that you chose for her, she will plunge into an abyss ... hum, an abyss much more devastating and voracious than self-hatred."

Harrow, usually so sure of himself, seems to be searching for his words as if the monster that stood out in Claudia was darker and crueller than the human mind could imagine. Viren does not answer and keeps staring at the white flower.

"What's more, if she inherits your position in the High Council, if she finds herself just like you in charge of millions of people, I have no need to tell you about the consequences for Katolis ...

The King trailed off mid-sentence, no doubt considering that the underlying threat will be reinforced. He is not, however, familiar with the effects of rhetoric. Moreover, he finishes his sentence, like an axe:

" ...and even for all the humankind."

For once, Harrow is not exaggerating, and Viren knows it. It is not their own realm who share the greatest portion of common border with the enemy Xadia, but Katolis is the most extensive, most populous and most powerful kingdom of the Pentarchy in terms of military forces. Katolis is the bulwark, the protective shield of the human territories. If Katolis fall, unbalanced by the weight of a green-eyed head swollen with nonchalance, dreams of power and death, all humanity will find itself defenceless against elves, monsters, drowners, wyverns, ghouls and dragons.

If Katolis fall, this is the end.

Viren can barely answer "All right, Your Grace".

In the green eyes of this twisted, deformed but yet so close Claudia, there is roaring Thunder.

Viren shakes his head and lets out an exasperated sigh to chase the king's words from his mind.

Guilt is undoubtedly accompanied by a vague temptation to jump into the abyss to no longer have to bear one's own breath. But for the moment, rather than herself, it's more him that Claudia seems to hate.

She is standing near him, on his side of the table. In addition to the dark magic fire that glows in the fireplace, the white winter sky enters through the window and is reflected in her raven hair and on the dark red tilling. For a study, the room is large and spacious, and daylight fails to illuminate it completely. There are still dark recesses escaping from the rays of the bleak winter sun, between the books, around the ocher Durennian carpet, under the side tables, behind the hangings and the official portrait of the King where Viren sat by his side.

The shadow is still there. The shadow is always here.

It is at about two o'clock. Viren gave orders to bring three meals at fixed times, medicines for Claudia's flu - she is still not cured-, and some fish left over for the animal. According to his prediction, Claudia should put forty-eight hours to make her mind, and she has been in the room with it for eight hours already.

Harrow has left him some paperwork to check - all which does not need the royal seal. Essentially statistical reports: crime rate, access to education in remote villages, price of bread, the standard of living of the inhabitants ... On his desk, on his shelves, many ancient spell-books to examine. Under his fingers, he feels the distinctive touch of the eleven skin parchment, and the smell of reddish ink - coagulated blood. Ancient draconic, ancient Valyrian, Tarquian, Merovian, so many dialects from the bottom ages to decipher, so many spells stating how to drown the Sun, freeze the Moon, change the ocean into lava ...

Viren has enough time to make it worthy of being away from the Royal Family. And Soren. He will have to think of something for him, or he will still make a fuss like he did last year. Fortunately, he has already planned the present for Harrow, which will undoubtedly arrive the next day, but one is never too careful.

Claudia comes close to him when he sits at his desk. She is holding the white kitten in her arms, covering her black dress with hair as she passes, and caressing its head distractedly as it purrs. But following the witticism on the rats that Viren has just made, which resembles him so little, she seems completely lost. Then she nervously taps on the kitten's fur, pinches her lips, she stares at the Durennian rug with her green eyes as if she wants to make it burn.

"Do you understand how crazy your reasoning is?"

"... And you, you ask me to kill a kitten for nothing. In which way, this is better ?"

When Claudia looks at him with those big wet green eyes, he has trouble holding back a smile.

"No, I ask you to kill it so that you can attend the king's birthday. And that of your brother. They have gone to Banthere with Queen Sarai and the princes, and we will not go to join them till you killed it."

Viren lets an apologetic smile distort his features briefly. That was the only excuse he could think to back her into a corner. He is not sure that she understands his intentions - and he himself is not convinced that his double machination will be of any efficacity. She is only nine years old, after all. So he goes on lying, he insists:

"Of course, you can also wait and let this cat door is open; you can go out whenever you want."

He calls it with a gesture of the chin. Finely crafted, double-panelled wood. Claudia pouts, looking at her feet. She does everything to keep the door out of her eye range.

"But you would not want to miss such an important event," Viren finishes, resting his hand on her shoulder, his voice velvet-smooth again.

"But - "

"Kill it, Claudia. "

He runs a hand through her long raven hair, then dips his quill in the inkwell and goes back to his paperwork. Claudia doesn't insist, and returns to the middle of the room, on the carpet, the kitten in her arms. She lays it on the ground so that it can pounce on the remains of fish on a plate, then swallows her medicine for her flu, looking at the crafted wooden door.

* * *

Suspense, suspense ...

I hope you enjoyed this first chapter!


	2. Chapter 2

The goose feather in Viren's fine hand creaks on paper between spell annotations and statistical reports. The deaf kitten has discovered he has an adventurer vocation and has escaped Claudia's arms to explore the dark corners of the study, between curiosity and game of hide-and-seek. The weights add up and are distributed on the plates of the scale. No dark magic to influence the scale.

Today, there is nothing but the scale.

Claudia's denial, she fails to find the beast hidden in some nook, is followed by revolt. It's not fair, Soren, Callum and Ezran were allowed to go on vacation and you force me to kill a kitten, normally it's spiders, disgusting insects, elven horns and human remains, and then you know what, I do not want to kill any more animals, I don't want to do anymore dark magic, that's why mom is gone, I never want to be like you.

Viren closes his eyes to brace himself, and he repeats:

"Kill it, Claudia."

But she continues.

Come on dad, look at him, he's really too cute, come on, please, I'll give you a new inkstand with my pocket money, with Sunforge phoenix feathers, excuse me for what I Did I tell you, I'll do it more, promise, swear, or a new costume for your birthday? He wanted to hold back a smile-without success, Claudia saw it. But all she could do to dig the flaw hit the grave:

"Kill it, Claudia."

Viren waited for the departure of the royal family to begin the ordeal. He did not tell them about it. He knows that they would have disapproved of his twisted manner, it must be admitted, to apply the king's advice. He almost hears from here Queen Sarai spit out his contempt. It's like she's standing, breathing, shattering and chopping in his office. Her footsteps echo on the pavement. How can you turn your daughter into a killing machine, murderer, unworthy father. You claim that dark magic kills to save but the death of this poor cutie will not benefit anyone. Did you only understand what Harrow told you? Your method seems more a way to test her cruelty than to point out her guilt! Finally, be serious, all Katolis knows that your daughter is already mad. What need do you have for yet another test to prove it!

Somehow, Viren is forced to admit that Sarai is not entirely wrong.

The cold pragmatism he conveys to his children - and especially to Claudia - may seem implacable, even immoral.

In particular, he remembers five moribund wounded soldiers whose only chance of survival was the agreement of a single donor. Sublimate his life force and share it among the five wounded, just enough to keep them alive while they are being treated sustainably ... Viren, who at the time was looking for nothing more than staying safe at his banner post of the late King Alzar, a sudden surge of morality had suddenly occurred. There was no time to wait and he did not hesitate for one second. He had slipped by night into the infirmary -the floor creaked slightly under his feet and it was dark; and then he had taken everything, sublimated, saved the five soldiers.

But the donor did not know anything. He was sleeping peacefully in the next bed (a small wound that, although painful and impressive, did not involve much of his strength) and Viren had not hesitated. The sublimation had him certainly spit a little blood in passing, prostrate on the ground to cough miserably, wipe his mouth and hand in lint, and he had been dizzy for two full days after that ... but he had saved five lives for the price of one.

"Dad, did not you have the properties of the Black Sand Mountain beasts to have me checked?

"How does the venom of the Iron Wyverns act?"

"The Wyverns," she recites, Iron-born or not, are often wrongly confused with the dragons with whom they share many morphological characteristics. But their behavior in the face of a threat differs radically. They try to bite their prey, but it's actually a diversion, because from behind, hop! they sting theirs victims with their dart-bzz! -bzz! "

Claudia, too happy to have a distraction, jumped up, went as far as throwing her arms in front of her like spades, and tried to give his face a false-cruel expression -surprised, the kitten falls from her knees and push a little meow of protest. Viren gives her an amused look. She resumes, encouraged:

"And the enzymes of their Iron-born magic venom, connected to the Earth's Arcanum, force the victim's blood to clot through the too high dose of injected iron ore, and the pebble prevents the blood from circulate properly, the brain is no longer irrigated -ah no, that's because neuro ... neurotox …"

She stumbles on the word, but she finds it:

"Because of postsynaptic neurotoxins that block the communication between the brain and the muscles. And death occurs in minutes."

"These are both at the same time. Nicely played."

"So can I go outside to play with the cat?"

"No. The term is blood clot, not pebble."

"Of course. A _clot_ of blood. Can I go play and leave the cat alone now?"

"Let me think about it ... No. Well tried, but no."

The sarcastic tone he used left no chance. However, Claudia shrugs with a small smile:

"The door is open. I go out when it pleases me."

Viren makes a gesture of the chin towards the door. Maybe she will get out, after all:

"Go ahead, then. "

Claudia's smile fades, and the pout returns. Viren resumes his paperwork, and Claudia runs her hand over the cat's back.

When Viren has to kill a monster or an elf for a spell, there is no question. But now, no doubt because of Harrow's oh-_so_ honorable influence, when he is a human being he must sublimate, he always makes sure that the victim is a criminal, a rapist, a murderer, or someone who deserves death for inflicting it without good reason.

"The good conscience of the executioner, yeah!" Sarai squeaks - the scratching of the feather on the parchment barely covers her voice. "_Sublimate_? Nice word to talk about a murder. Killing someone to solve all our problems at once? Of course. And soon, are you going to tell us that you are an reverse necromancer and that it has nothing to do with killing people? No, it's too easy, and it's not fair. It's even totally unfair. "

Thus proclaims the warrior of which one of the highest feats is to have pierced five Evenryan soldiers at once on a punitive expedition ... Queen Sarai is certainly a precious friend - he has been sincerely appreciating her for the last fifteen years they know each other, but she can show an aberrational bad faith that sometimes makes her hard to live with ...

" Dad ?"

"Hm?"

"Why does the little boy fall off the swing?"

Claudia has posted herself in front of the office, she has changed strategy: from the good student, she has gone to the joke, and it is just as effective. The animal, decidedly adventurous, has climbed on her shoulders and observes the landscape. The ambient twilight and the anxiety of vertigo conspire to dilate its pupils, then, icing on the cake, he pushes a little meow. That plays in favor of one of the plates of the scale. Paradoxically, it is its fragility that serves its as armor. These animals are decidedly twisted.

"Because he has no arms," Viren replies with the jaded tone of one who has heard the joke ten times.

"Yeah, this was a funny one, wasn't it ?"

"In my turn: why won't the little girl leave the office?"

"Because she has no legs?"

"Almost there : because she does not want to kill the cat."

"The door is open, I go out when it pleases me."

"Be my guest. I don't hold you back."

That said, notes Viren, perhaps it is also a question of method.

With Dark Magic, there is no frantic beat of the heart under the warm and elastic skin, no howl that rises from the depths of the vibrating throat under the fingers, no dark and gooey red molasses that chews the hands and dries under the nails, no thrilling terror in the veins, no lungs that swell in search of air, no slow motion of the rising of the chest, no gaze that freezes in the eyeballs, no opaque veil that covers the eyes, no stiffening of the limbs ... nothing .

Just a formula, a violet haze, a possible hiccup of pain, a body that falls a few meters away and a soul to sublimate... A soul to _use_.

With dark magic, life is too far to reach, and guilt falls asleep without dream ...

He could have put a knife in Claudia's hands instead of a Primal Stone of Sky. The monster that the queen likes to see in Claudia would have killed this animal without any hesitation. A blade stroke at the throat, and it was over. Or rather no: the past nine hours would rather have gone to he-did-know-what nonsense, to tear the claws, eyeballs, or for example slicing one by one the pads, sinister creak of the bone, dark and glutinous molasses covering the hands, heart-breaking mews; to strike, again and again, until the thing picked up on the ground no longer has the strength to whine and beg for completion.

But Viren just does not have the courage to inflict that on his daughter. Already at the time, on the battlefield, he was called a coward.

"Wait, you know that of the elf who repaints his ceiling?"

The mage does not even want to play the game. He sighs, his fingers massage his temples, and he repeats for the twentieth or thirtieth time:

"Kill it, Claudia."

"I can not, he is invisible", she answers as if she did not understand. "He's a Moon-shadow Elf, and it's dark outside."

Indeed, the murmur of the court has gone out. In the middle of winter, night falls early and the servant has not yet brought dinner. Viren did not even notice the change of scenery. The study is plunged, besides the sublimated fire that has not ceased to glow since this morning at the price of some creature burning with pain a few kilometers away, in the golden halos of candles and candelabra that he does not remember not have lights on. Surely he did it by reflex, by magic, without paying attention, with a snap of his fingers distracted by his reflections.

"It's not the full moon, and I was talking about the cat. Kill it."

"No, but look at this !" she insists with little conviction, "we see his eyes clear and mean and his evil horns shining in the darkness-"

"Kill it, Claudia. "

This time she does not even talk about the open door.

Claudia is used to the presence of death. Spell books, dissection tables and organ jars are an integral part of her world, as well as himself, as Soren or the stones of Katolis Castle. Dark magic, sublimation, the ballet of souls and bodies ... they have something reassuring and necessary for her. They melted into her mind with the relentless force of habit and comfort.

If she is without her purse of ingredients, as now, she is immediately uncomfortable, fingers nervously fingers or foot -Viren thinks he has the same tic, or she is trying to argue with Soren for fill the gaping void left by her spells. To the point that her first reflex in a locked room would probably be to look for a spell to force the lock, not the key to open it ...

Dark magic is part of her, no doubt.

But what she has in front of her in the familiar coldness of the laboratories, they are only bodies. Or rats, snakes, insects, spiders, animals that are killed without a thought, as one hunts a dust of the hand. They are repugnant. That does not matter. In addition, Dad says that you can save thousands of people if you put the context right, if you sublimate the good creature in the right circumstances.

Claudia plays with death, but she does not face it.

To kill her without sublimating is to deprive her of her dance with death. To kill for nothing is to put her in front of the nothingness. In all its horror and nonsense. It opens a wound, presses and weighs on the guilt that bleeds and hurts.

The kitten was not chosen at random. Viren knows that it is one of the animals that most parasitize the human mind. At two months old, they are small, a light and fragile body, a tiny mouth, big sky eyes disproportionate to the head, a fluffy white fur that calls the hand for it to plunge into it. A single look at one of them brings back a primitive, almost beastly instinct, to take care of more vulnerable than oneself, to cherish it until it explodes with joy, crushed by so much affection.

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**I translated this part myself, and I am very bad at this exercise. So, PLEASE let me know if you are intrested in beta-reading for translators ! :)**

**I hope you enjoyed this part ! The next one will come soon !**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey ! Here is the third part ! Way shorter than the two others, but I hope you will enjoy it !**

**And thank you SO MUCH Yeeto-Cheetos for your review ! X)**

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"And the joke about the Neolandian who does not want to eat his broccoli ..."

Claudia sat on a chair in a corner of the large room, and left her plate aside. Her hands are still black with ink. She stains everything she touches. The servant finally brought supper, and if Viren did not even look up from her paperwork, Claudia followed with her eyes the servant who, having put her tray near her, left the room. He left quietly, without a word, as a servant, and closed the double door behind him to go about his business in the corridors of the castle. The animal, seeing that she did not touch his meal, took the opportunity to grab it.

"Listen." Viren retors, between two bites of lamb fillet with rosemary, shallot and wine, "I spent the last eleven years of my life telling this story, to Soren and you, for you two to eat yours."

"Oh."

She looks in the void, seeming to reflect on the philosophical lessons of Keira Metz the alchemist, about the universals and their place in the human's way to understand the world. The kitten tries to drag the piece of greasy meat on the carpet, without her showing the slightest movement to prevent it. The clatter of silver cutlery resonates in a meditative silence. Then she continues:

"-Was it working?

-Yes, the proof is, you are still alive and in good health. This is great news since you will be able to enjoy it for ...?

Viren leaves his sentence in abeyance, hoping that the lesson be integrated in the form of the terse answer "To kill the cat." But of course, that would be misunderstanding Claudia:

"Find the cure for leprosy and defeat Thunder!" she announces with a big smile.

Viren raises an eyebrow. Defeating a dragon is Soren's dream. No Claudia.

"We will do it together", she says.

"It's nice to have dreams, but if you're unable to finish a kitten, the dragon king should still have a good thousand years in front of him."

"Except if you kill him before, of course."

"Of course."

"You don't want to kill him?"

"I certainly hate cats, but I hate disobedient girls even more."

"Ah, but I was talking about Thunder, not the kit ...

"Kill it, Claudia. "

It was as if her moral sense and her compassion had suddenly awakened from a long, dreamless sleep during which Claudia was jumping for the pleasure of attending beheadings or dissecting dozens of rats ...

And if Viren relies on what he has in front of him -Claudia having put the Primitive Stone in a corner of the study to throw a paper ball to the animal who likes to roll it between his legs .. The bet is much more risky than Harrow and Saraï had suspected.

From there to become a grotesque reflection of Thunder ...

But the goal of manipulation is precisely to resurrect the guilt, and we do not blame for a fault that we did not commit.

Manipulation. The word is filthy, even for Viren. He lines it for maneuvering.

Certainly, she insisted, she even harassed him to attend her first execution two years ago, jumped into his arms when he finally, reluctantly accepted ... but once in front of the scaffold, she forced herself to stand up straight in her black dress, not to shake, to smile and to keep her eyes wide open. Viren knew how impressed she was, how much she wanted to find back the familiar nooks in the library, not to see that ax whistling, not to see that pale head fall into the bucket, into the abyss ...

Viren, him, closed his eyes - not for the elf, he was a dark wizard, by the holy Xadia; but for something so childish, immature, ridiculous that he almost reached Soren's level. He had closed his eyes, just so that his chest warmed with pride, a pure, absurd, stupid pride to know that his daughter was watching. He knows it, she was watching death. His green eyes shone a little, but they were open, wide awake, and they saw death. Viren really felt proud of her that day, but he knew perfectly well that she was not able to hold the executioner's ax.

Since then, she has witnessed many death sentences - no offense to her Great Magnificent Highness Queen Sarai, and has accumulated enough knowledge of black magic (and even primitive) to make the legendary Keira Metz pale with jealousy ...

So for this task, Viren chose magic without much hesitation.

A spell she knows, which she masters, that she has executed on a number of nasty animals and whose contact with the victim is much less direct, less hot, less tangible than with a blade. And especially that does not involve red spots on the carpet. The blood is a real ordeal to clean, and he does not wish to further burden the shoulders of the servant by these dirty jobs ...

But even this precaution was not enough. Eleven o'clock later, the animal is still alive - and he continues to whine. Fortunately Viren has bewitched him beforehand to prevent him from doing its buisness on the carpet.

Claudia is still tied in her guilt. It weighs on her, it restrains her, it chokes her, it paralyzes her.

Eleven full hours that Claudia is locked in his office, with the Primitive Storm Stone in her hand, this kitten to kill in her arms and the open door behind her. And, hanging on the wall in front of her, framed in marquetry, there is the double-full-length portrait of the king and her father, who stares at her.

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**Thats all for the moment, but this cut is justified. **

**Hope you enjoyed it ! :)**


	4. Chapter 4

The end of it, right after season 3 :)

Hope you enjoy it !

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Soren has always loved this painting, she thinks, passing her hand under the chin of the purring kitten, with a mechanical gesture. He thinks the king is all about a hero in his big armour and his ceremonial sword in his hand. And on this portrait, daddy smiles.

He is easier to look, on this chart. The original always seems a little sad. His oil-painted reflection is easier to look at than the original, sitting at his desk, blackening pages and pages of paperwork in the halo of candles - feather scritching, thrill of paper, lapping of the wax and blow of the seal on the parchment; avoiding to look at her except to repeat "Kill it, Claudia".

Dad told her to kill the kitten, telling her that she would not be allowed to attend birthdays if she could not, but she knows that's not true. Papa always attends the king's birthday, whatever happens, and he will never leave her at the castle all alone. What was the word already? Black-meal, black-miller...

If it was, it was a funny-tasting meal !

There were still three days left before Soren's birthday, leaving her two full days to do what her father asks her to do.

If she had been a rat as usual, she would not have asked questions, since she would sublimate him to do something useful, or, failing that, splendid or amusing; even if it's always amusing to feel the bones crunch between your fingers after watching it squirm and squeal as if it had the slightest chance of escaping from the big march of Progress, to escape from _her ..._

Even without dark magic, without the possibility of redeeming the sacrifice, she would not have hesitated, since the said sacrifice did not weigh very heavily, and would not be wanting to a great world, would it? Except maybe to his fleas to mourn him. Or King Harrow and Queen Sarai. It was only these two to be interested in the fate of a simple rat, as the elves elsewhere. Except that her father strangely put a Primitive Stone in her hand, and instead of the ugly beast, put a deaf, two-month-old kitten in the other.

Claudia, sitting on the ground, raises the fragile animal in her arms-it looks at her with its big blue eyes that make you want to drown, and it pushes a little meow adorable. It is so cute when it is angry. So she puts it down, and it takes the opportunity to make its claws on the carpet - an annoyed sigh from the desk can be heard.

Her father is always present at the rare executions. Of course, he is not the one to execute the sentence. But he keeps and preserves the soul and body of the condemned, and he keeps them to prepare incredible spells ... And the more the criminal is mean, the more the spell will be powerful. So it's even better if the convict is an elf.

But this kitten is not a criminal, and she is not allowed to use dark magic. She knows very well that it's not for its soul that Dad wants her to kill it.

Claudia remembers very well her first capital execution. It was supposed to be the last execution the Katolis kingdom would be known, and it was a decapitation - the king had ordered that death be quick and painless. Even if she was an elf, Harrow wanted to keep her a certain dignity. It was strange. Everyone knows that elves are bloodthirsty monsters.

She remembers having insisted a lot to attempt to the show. Papa and the king did not agree at first. Father said that she was too young and that Soren would be jealous, since the execution would be held during his training hours; and the king said that no one should attend, except himself, Sarai, the Lord Viren and a columnist responsible for reporting the event. Perfom in secret. Hide. Be ashamed. Be ashamed to kill, because it's not fair. "This is a page of justice that is turning today." the queen said. "The Justice of Katolis will no longer be a murderous justice. You are the last one to be sentenced to death in the history of this kingdom."

Of course, Queen Sarai was wrong, because she was "too idealistic to see the reality" (it's an expression her father uses to talk about the queen. Claudia does not know exactly what " Idealist " means, but it must be a pretty violent insult) and afterwards, Claudia saw many Elves lose their lives under the ax of the executioner. But for her first performance -she was still small, seven-year-old, neither her father nor Harrow had first agreed to her attending.

But Claudia, by dint of insisting, insististing, please, please, please, had finally convinced her father, and she had jumped for joy. Okay, maybe the thing about beating the body with her riding crop was a bit too exaggerated, but she was so eager to see if the blood of the Moon-shadow elves was slightly luminous, if the magic of the elves had a mass that left the body after death, if the traces of their Arcanum were visible to the naked eye immediately after death occured. All the experiences she could do with the body! And father would surely be happy if she showed her curiosity about how the elven body worked - they were after all magical creatures. But he looked almost sad, and when he told her that the king had expressly forbidden the body and soul to be sublimated or studied in any way, she had been very disappointed. Not to say that all her good humor had settled like a failed plumbed soufflé, but still. Right away, it was a lot less interesting to go, but she could not go back.

So she did went, refused to hold anyone's hand, even that of the king and queen who had offered her, and she had watched, fascinated, amazed, the white-haired Elf mount one by one steps of the scaffold creaked under her pounds of squat muscles. She was not only an elf, a savage creature, deceitful, cruel, bloodthirsty, but also an assassin whom it was not long before she became regicide (Claudia loves this word, "regicide", it sounds like ancient novels of chivalry, bewitched heroes, arranged marriages, perjured oaths, blood baths, dark conspiracies and heavy secrets).

She walked with the insolence of the one who feels little concern. Her left horn was broken. In her capture, the guards had sliced her one of the four fingers of her hand. Her dirty, white hair fell into braids tangled in front of her face. Her eyes too bright, highlighted by tribal tattoos that ate her face, were already staring emptiness.

Claudia had promised to keep her eyes open when the ax fell, but she could not. She just hoped that father did not see that she had wamp out- if he was going to be disappointed and he was going to tell Soren who was going to make fun of her for days.

And if she's not even able to look at an ax falling for an elf, what kind of Dark Mage and Prime Minister will she do?

Even if she has since seen quantities and quantities of elves rise to the scaffold, observed the fateful moment with the curiosity and fascination befitting a real dark mage, and did not have any nightmares, nevertheless: she could not watch her first execution, and it was bad, not to say frankly pitiful.

On the wall facing her, the king and father, painted side by side, wait. She still has two days, but she has to hurry.

After all, a kitten is like a rat.

Bigger. Softer. Friendlier. Cuter. Everything-er, actually. It is white, frail, light and warm, in her hands. A simple twist would be enough to break its vertebrae in a crack. But when the animal meows, she just wants to press it hard against her, to forget the ball of her throat, to let all her tenderness explode, to call it Caligulon, Neronius or Learis and to hold it tight forever. After all, the double-hatched door is right behind her, open, it is calling her. She can be there in a few steps. She just has to turn around. Claudia takes a deep breath, she turns her head, the door is there, massive, and vertigo, and it's the head that turns.

Get out ? What for ? Go to her room to prepare her case for Banthere, of course, or go in the library to read a novel (Scarlet Marauders or The Sleeping Bard that have been making her thirsty for months), or revise her irregular verbs in Neolandian, or reclassify jars from the laboratory, or steal a piece of blackberry pie in the kitchen, or find a birthday present for Soren?

As soon as she puts her eyes on the door, she feels as if she is standing at the edge of the abyss.

But in the icy roundness of the Primitive Stone of Heaven, Claudia can see her reflection. Outside, it's dark now. The candles that gild the office are reassuring. But despite their light, or because of it, its reflection is distorted on the glass, too deformed. The trapped storm fades her, swells her, she has a huge head, her face is swollen and purple, her green eyes are huge and globose, as if she were on the autopsy table of the laboratory ... And just put your eyes on the little beast, so fragile, so adorable, to feel a lump in her throat. Like another stone ready to strangle her.

As for killing the little animal by dark magic, it's not worth thinking about it. Father took away from her her purse, which she had to unclasp from her belt, and put it on his desk. Claudia is not experienced enough yet to sublimate without any ingredients. Without the familiar weight of the leather hanging by her side, Claudia feels strangely light, she does not like it, and her fingers pat themselves on her belt where hangs nothing but emptiness ...

But if she gets out, if she does not cast the spell, what will dad say?

Claudia wonders which of the two abysses, the door or the stone, is the most terrifying. Since eleven hours that she's been languishing in this study, she still has no answer.

To stop seeing them, there is only one thing to do.

To weigh.

Do as usual. Take the Stone of Sky in one hand, draw the dragon rune in the air, and pronounce the formula. With rats, it's done alone. But as he said father, as he never says, rats too had the right to live.

She puts the kitten on the floor. It is falling asleep. Its breathing is regular. Its eyelids are closed. Its hair quivers with every little gulp of air that his small lungs.

She kneels down. She's choking. She chokes. It's like a heavy iron collar that squeezes her, strangles her, crushes her. She is not used to this posture, and her knee hurts. She has trouble looking at her hand. Suddenly, the blood that beats in her veins shames her, so ashamed that even the sight of his feet is unbearable. She is not supposed to be ashamed, let alone ashamed of killing an animal. She is a future lady of the court, by Xadia, the daughter of a great lord, the future High Dark Mage of Katolis who will discover the cure for leprosy. She must not be ashamed. So she frowns and squeezes her lips. That's what she does when she has to concentrate. She feels her throat knot even more, water blurs her vision, but it is out of the question that she wheeps for this cat.

No soul is waiting for the sacrifice of it to spring back into the light. But, as the king says, he must leave with honor and dignity.

This animal does not deserve to die from a whiner's hand. Neither animal.

Although she can not quite define "honor", she feels like it's like with elves, and like rats. A universal, almost natural, almost more important dignity than life, perhaps even more important than death ... but it weighs more than all the profits, benefits, benefits, lives saved by dark magic ?

She raises her head to look at the official portrait in front of her. Portrait in foot, one meter by fifty centimeters. Framed in fine wood, in dark colors of oil painting, the king and his father look far, far away, and smile at a future she can not see.

A future she has to build for Katolis ...

And so that her father is proud of her.

The heavy, round, icy stone in her hand rumbled, and the Draconic rune sizzled when she traced it through the air.

The kitten does not grow a mewing when she puts her hand on it. The light of the spell slightly blueish it white fur.

Viren has just affixed the seal of the Prime Minister on his seventh letter of the evening when he hears the red floor squeak. He barely has time to look up. From the back of the throat, with a broken, resolute voice, a Fulminis! has already sounded.

The light is so strong that Viren must close his eyes.

A short sizzle, a smell of grilled meat in the nostrils. And a brief meow.

When he opens his eyes, he must blink them several times. Colorful spots dance in front of him like so many small abysses. The strength of the spell extinguished all the candles in the office. The room is plunged into darkness. The eyes do not see anything.

There is nothing but nothingness.

Viren gets up from his chair, snaps his fingers, and the candles burn again, as if nothing had happened. The abysses left the room after the black mass they have just celebrated. In the middle of the office, Claudia is standing. Her black embroidered dress is torn in places.

The Primitive Stone of Sky rolls on the pavement. In her arms there is a little corpse.

Viren does not dare to move.

He does not dare to emit any sound. He had planned forty-eight hours. It took twelve hours to Claudia.

Claudia is standing in the candlelight, but she is shaking. Her shoulders jerk. And despite all her efforts to stay upright, like a blade of an ax or sword, like the sense of duty, like a hangman, like a minister, like a lord, like a scale, display a proud smile as on the table at wall ... despite all her efforts, she cries.

Slowly, Viren approaches her. His footsteps resonate slightly on the pavement. She does not make a move to back down. Her hand keeps coming and going on the motionless fur. When Viren gently raises the animal's body to put it on his desk (light, incredibly light), she poses no resistance. No more when he surrounds her with his arms.

Claudia cries, he is proud of her, and he hates himself so much that he would like it to be on him that she threw the Fulminis.

This humanity, this accursed humanity. Nihil homani natus, say the elves. Humans are born with nothing, no moon, no sun, no ocean, no stars, no earth, no sky to flow through their veins and burn there how they will be born, live and die. There is no element to determine humans. There is only dark magic, death to deliver to those who do not have the emptiness that is their strength. Humans have nothing to predestate them: they are free.

Their freedom. An infinite freedom, total, absolute, infamous, rotten of the inner, since it carries in itself the seeds of its own destruction: freedom, sin, guilt, and the inexhaustible thirst for repentance.

Those who are not thirsty are monsters, ghouls with human faces, putrefactors or worse, elves, and despite the proud smile she tries to maintain, because she actually did it, and twice as much sooner than expected, Claudia is not one of those monsters.

Harrow and Sarai believed that this freedom, for those who chose to seize it with both hands and drink from it, plunged it into a purple mist where the choices were guided only by madness. Where good and bad no longer existed apart from one's own decisions. Where Libra's justice, fidelity and sensitivity were drowned in madness. Where discernment was lost in the darkness, carrying with it the lives of thousands of innocents that any person of power can keep under his responsibility and under his will. Power, freedom, drunkenness, thirst for blood and for impossible ...

But they did not understand anything, oh, no, nothing, absolutely nothing. nothing. Contrary to what they assert with so much presumption, to drink the liberty with the neck does not mean to become a monster if the discernment and the morality have not deserted the veins. Claudia hesitated for twelve whole hours before resolving, and she is whimpering. If science without consciousness is only ruin of the soul, then Claudia's soul is the most unshakable of all Xadia. Guilt is etched in Claudia's flesh.

Viren is sure of it. Claudia is human to the tips of her nails. She is human in the slightest drop of her blood, in the least of her bones.

No matter what sacrifices are to be made, no matter what lives she will have to give to nothing, no matter what souls she will have to sublimate for her spells. If she knows that she will save ten times more destinies, if she knows that her father would have done it without hesitation, if she knows that she must do it, if she knows that her duty is always heavier in the balance than freedom, guilt and the natural affectivity of humans, it will do it.

But for now, she cries and he holds her in his arms.

Ush...

Ush...

It'll be fine.

You'll be fine.

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**So ? Your thougts ?**

**I hope you enjoyed this story :D**


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